Atmospheric Tuning

[LowB_FTW]

I have my Washburn AB-35 hanging on the wall above the desk where I WFH.

Over the last couple of nights I've heard pings and pops coming from it, so I thought I'd get it down the next time I was off shift (tonight) and have a quick session on it as I haven't played it in some time, favouring the Ashdown bass as it's just in the living room on a stand because it takes up less physical space than the Washburn.

I take the Washburn down from the wall, give it a dusting off and just holding the neck I can tell the strings need tuning properly.

Plug it into my tuner, hit the G string and I'm a bit surprised to see it's hitting the C 😂, and it's quite a sharp C at that. In fact, it's so sharp the needle won't physically move any further to the right of the meter.

 

Every damn string was tuned so high, it took about 15mins of tuning and re-tuning to get it to where it should be.

 

It's back on the hanger now but I'll need to keep an eye on it because I suspect when the neck settles back into a more relaxed position, I'll need to retune once more.

 

Anyway, that's my night so far, hope you're all having a good one.

 

Mark

[tauzero]

Are you sure you haven't restrung it as E-C and forgotten you'd done it?

[Guest]

Some graphite lube on the nut slots will stop the popping, although it's harmless.

[StickyDBRmf]

And here I thought you were gonna recommend a Joni tuning.

[TimR]

Is there a big change in temperature over night?

 

If it's going sharp it would imply the room is getting very cold. 

[LowB_FTW]

Honestly, I have no idea what was going on with it.

I've never done any tuning other than standard G - B.

Checking it over the last few days after giving it 24hrs for the neck to settle it seems to be stable enough. I do appear to need new strings, but otherwise all seems good.

 

Mark

[LowB_FTW]

14 hours ago, TimR said:

Is there a big change in temperature over night?

 

If it's going sharp it would imply the room is getting very cold. 

Not especially, no.

It's where I work, and I work night-shift so the heating is on through the nights when it's generally the coldest part of the day, and I stay in nocturnal mode when I'm off-shift, so again the heating is still on.

I've never experienced this particular issue with my other basses, so I'm putting it down to a one off, freak occurrence hahaha.

 

Mark